The Voicemail Dilemma
by thenokken
Summary: Aziraphale can't begin to understand why Crowley seems to be ignoring him, why is it so hard to talk on the bloody phone? Fluff, first kiss, idiots in love


"Hello," drawled the bored voice from the opposite line of Aziraphale's rotary telephone, the angel smiled and immediately set down the cup of hot chocolate he had been about to take a drink from.

"Crowley! This is Azira-"

"This is Crowley-"

"Well, yes, I know it's you-"

"You know what to do." There was a click and a rather loud beep. Aziraphale lowered the phone from his ear, shaking his head slightly and nervously twirling the long, spiral cord with his free hand. After a moment of deep thought, he raised the telephone back up to his ear.

"Whatever could you possibly mean by that?" He said, bewildered. There was no answer. "Crowley? Are you still there?" Again, nothing. There was the faint buzzing noise he had come to associate with all manner of new technology, and the tinkling of a bell that let him know someone had come into his bookshop.

"Drat," he muttered. "Pardon me but I will have to ring you again in a bit, I'm still not sure what you mean but I suppose I will have to think on it for a tad longer. Goodbye." With that he hung up on his friend, sighed, put on his best "I shall be polite but I will quite literally do almost anything short of violence to prevent you from buying, breathing on, or touching one of these books" face in preparation for the facing his first (and hopefully last) customer of the week.

"Hello."

"It's me, Aziraphale, I'm ringing you back after earlier today?"

"This is Crowley."

"I know that."

"You know what to do." Pause. Click. Beep. Whir.

"No Crowley, I actually don't. Could you please tell me?"

No response.

"I'm getting quite tired of this, is this a joke?"

Nothing.

"Have it your way. Goodbye." Aziraphale set the phone down a touch harder than was strictly necessary and huffed irritably.

While Aziraphale didn't sleep, he did enjoy spending the later parts of the night tucked into bed in a cozy pair of tartan pajamas. Often he would enjoy a record, a glass of wine, and one or two books (paperback grocery store books, the kind that are about a tawdry romance, a poorly written spy ring or any other number of overdone rubbish, those were his private-private collection, he hadn't even let on to Crowley he ever looked at the ruddy things. They were one of his many low level vices). But tonight he was simply laying on his bed, a rapidly cooling cup of herbal tea on the nightstand, staring up at the ceiling with his brow furrowed.

This particular position made him feel as close to human as possible. There are very few things that can make an immortal and immeasurably powerful ethereal being such as himself feel so utterly human, but staying awake in bed and staring at the ceiling while consumed in thoughts you would rather not be thinking about was one of them (the others being trying in vain to make small talk with cashiers when you're in a hurry, being stuck in traffic, and having an embarrassing encounter with a volunteer trying in vain to get one single person to even think about signing whatever petition they were so passionate about that week).

Was Crowley ignoring him? Why wasn't he speaking? Was it a coded message? Aziraphale rolled over, sighing in discomfort. He hated not speaking to Crowley. And usually they didn't speak for a concrete reason; Crowley asking for a veritable suicide pill in a pastel thermos, Aziraphale shouting at Crowley for dog-earing a book page, both of them mucking up where the antichrist was and nearly ending the world (and possibly the universe).

Maybe he should give him a ring that night.

When Crowley opened the door, eyes bleary and suit rumpled, at exactly 3:23 in the morning, the last person he expected to find was Aziraphale. Wearing matching _tartan _pajamas, his hair stuck up on one side and a cross expression on his face made pale with the dim light of the streetlamp through the window.

"_Angel?_" He rubbed a hand across his jaw, leaning against the door frame. "What the fuck are you doing. What the fuck are you wearing?"

"Never mind that. I mean- the part about my attire." The short angel shifted, looking uncomfortable, clasping his hands nervously. "Why aren't we speaking?"

"What do you think we're doing currently? Attending the opera?" Crowley rolled his eyes, stepping aside and sweeping his hand in a grand gesture of _"for the love of something please come inside". _

"You know what I mean!" Aziraphale said, hesitating before stepping inside, the door shutting behind him with a snap. "Or, at least I think you do."

"Sit." Crowley pointed at an armchair and took a seat in the one opposite, crossing his legs and leaning back, a half-empty wine glass in one hand.

"Thank you, dear." Aziraphale sat, back straight and shoulders square, a steaming tea cup materializing in one hand. "Now, as I was saying-"

"One moment." Crowley stood up suddenly and walked quickly into the next room, coming back with a thick, rather fluffy gray blanket which he wrapped around Aziraphale's shoulders before sitting back down. The angel stared at him, mouth open in a comical 'o'. "You looked cold, Angel." Crowley shrugged, taking a sip from his glass.

"Um, thank you." Aziraphale looked puzzled, he set his teacup down and sighed. "Are you mad at me? You aren't talking back to me on the telephone."

"We haven't spoken on the phone in ages, what on earth are you going on about?"

"No, no." Aziraphale folded his hands in his lap and shook his head. "I spoke to you on the telephone twice in the past 24 hours. And several other times this week."

"No, Angel, you haven't." Crowley was frowning. "Hold on now, lemme check something."

"Crowley! I swear-" Aziraphale opened his mouth to argue, but the demon was already exiting the room, again. "Oh, blast it all." Aziraphale muttered to himself, he was grumpy, confused, and wanted Crowley to just tell him why he was acting so oddly instead of puttering about. The angel sat back against the cool leather, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath (not that he needed it, but it was a comforting thing to do when one was unbelievably appalled).

"Hello," there was a slight popping and crackly quality to the greeting. "This is Crowley, you know what to do." Then, the odd and familiar beeping.

"Crowley?" Aziraphale started, sitting up abruptly, his eyes flying open to see the demon standing before him, a strange square, brickish thing in his arms. "What on earth is that?"

"Aziraphale, how the devil-" Crowley swallowed, looking down guilty. "Sorry, but how do you not know what an answering machine is? Have you never progressed past the 1910's?"

"Well, I, I-" he was turning pink, tugging on the sleeves of his pajamas nervously. "Oh, you know how I feel about all that electronic codswallop."

"Angel," Crowley sat down in the armchair again, the answering machine balanced across is lap. "This is an answering machine. If you call, and I don't answer, then you're call is sent to this machine where you say a message and the tape records it, are you following?"

"Yes!" Aziraphale said, exasperated. "I may be 'old-fashioned' but I'm not an idiot."

"Of course you're not." Crowley smiled wryly.

"So, this… this recording, is it like a letter?"

"I suppose you could call it that, yeah."

"One thing I still don't understand," the angel looked away from Crowley, staring at his slipper-clad feet. "Why didn't you answer, or contact me?" He looked up at the demon, trying to keep the hurt off his face (and failing).

"Angel, we used to go 1,000 years without speaking, and now you get worried after a week?" Crowley pointedly not looking at him, instead choosing to concentrate on swirling the wine around in his glass.

"What were you doing instead?" Aziraphale said, suspicion clouding his voice.

"I was taking a nap, if you must know." Crowley muttered. "A nap you may have just woken me up from."

"You don't need sleep!"

"Says the one wearing matching tartan pajamas for fuck's sake!"

"They're stylish!" Aziraphale snapped, standing up and waving the teacup away into wherever discarded teacups were sent once vanished.

"Oh, Angel," Crowley stood up too, a wicked smile spreading across his face. "They really aren't."

"I'm dreadfully sorry to have bothered you," Aziraphale sniffed, smoothing his hands across the front of his shirt to banish any nonexistent wrinkles. "I am quite capable of seeing myself out."

"Oh come on!" Crowley trailed after him, desperate to beat him to the door. He vanished in a puff of gray smoke and materialized in front of the angel, blocking the door. "Angel, I'm only teasing you."

"You've been doing that a lot lately, I don't quite understand, it's-" he was flustered, stumbling for the right words. "Rude! Confusing! I don't understand you sometimes, Crowley."

"For fuck's sake-" Crowley ran a hand through his hair, tugging slightly in frustration. He stopped, bit his lip, and suddenly, before Aziraphale had a chance to open his mouth to argue, grabbed the angel around the waist and pulled him into a hard, needy kiss.

Crowley's lips were warmer than Aziraphale had expected. And his grip was much gentler. Aziraphale was melting against him. Their mouths moved together, almost frantic, the sort of kiss one would expect after 6,000 years of dancing around the other one but never quite touching. Those 6,000 years felt for both parties the way it does when you run your hand across the flame of a candle, almost too hot, you have to move quickly or risk burning. This, right here, in the foyer of Crowley's sleek apartment, this was the burning. And it was delicious.

Aziraphale didn't sleep, but that night, his head against Crowley's chest and the tartan pajamas lost somewhere in the tangle of their limbs and blankets, he finally understood the appeal of it. Giving up a bit of control to lose yourself in a vast expanse of blankness, warm and comfortable. Next to the person you quite literally love the most in the universe. Maybe this was what falling felt like, falling in love, falling from grace; never hitting the ground.

"Crowley?"

"Yes?"

"Is it too forward if I stay here tonight."

"Angel, we just did a number of vaguely unspeakable things that neither upstairs nor downstairs would approve of wholeheartedly and you still feel the need to ask if you can spend the night?"

"Well, may I?"

"If you didn't I'd be worried you'd think all of this was a mistake."

"No!" Aziraphale sat up, twisting around to look into Crowley's eyes. "I don't think any of this was a mistake, not one bit." He chewed the inside of his cheek and looked at the demon thoughtfully for a moment. "You and I, together, we're ineffable."

"Angel?" Crowley pulled Aziraphale back against his chest, missing the feeling of skin against skin after just a minute of having him gone.

"Yes, my dear?"

"I'm really glad you didn't understand the answering machine." Crowley smiled at hearing Aziraphale laugh, the angel shifting to be closer, closing the last few millimeters of space that existed between them.

"Me too."


End file.
